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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26467657">Campanula</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/milk_qndhinata/pseuds/milk_qndhinata'>milk_qndhinata</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Canon Timeline, Other, Spoilers, also takes place in chapter 4 of Attack on Titan manga, this takes place after Armin joins the Cadet Corps</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-09-14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-09-14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 08:40:48</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,600</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26467657</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/milk_qndhinata/pseuds/milk_qndhinata</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>More flowers were to flourish.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>No Romantic Relationship(s)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Campanula</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>hello! for anyone not caught up with snk past chapter 4/episode 5, please don't read (that is unless you don't mind spoilers). if that's the case, read on. i hope you enjoy it!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p><em>“You’re a worthless coward!”</em> The shrill and feminine shout of a person caught Armin’s ear, causing him to flinch on instinct at the unanticipated noise. Who else could be out here with him at the dead of night? He raced the dirt pathway and found one of his comrades hammering her temple against a tree until glimpsing the crimson wash her face, only able to do so from the moonlight looming overhead.</p>
<p>“Are you alright? I heard screaming!”</p>
<p>The girl froze, muttering something close to <em>damn it</em> from being discovered. She whirled around awkward smile and all to reveal grotesque lacerations littering her forehead. “F-Fine as a fiddle..!”</p>
<p>Armin ripped his protracted peer away, mentally scolding himself for poor manners, and stole her hand. For reason Armin didn’t know, she allowed herself to be directed, though he dwelled on it little if it meant she would accept his help. The two crept with ease past the Commandant’s quarters as it was a mere hop, skip and jump away from the infirmary and against all odds they reached the medical establishment. Befuddled, the girl witnessed Armin pick the locked door with a bobby pin and gather the necessary supplies for her treatment. She obliged when he kindly inquired her to take a seat at the exam table and began executing—in swift and experienced movements, might she mention—the care she required. The air between them swelled with only breathing and stifled noises from the girl, at which point Armin blathered multiple apologies. The blond neared finishing upon stitching her wounds close, and having nothing else to do, he noticed the manner her eyes glazed over his fixed expression and decided to answer her unasked question.</p>
<p>“Before Shiganshina fell, my friend’s father was our town’s doctor.” For a moment, she recalled the two particular people Armin was seen frequently with throughout the first day of training.</p>
<p>She took a wild guess and said “Mikasa Ackerman?” <em>Eren Jaeger,</em> Armin corrected her.</p>
<p>“I used to get beaten by other kids back home for my ideals. They labeled me a heretic and wouldn’t let me forget it. Mr. Jaeger would fix me up, and one day, I realized it’d make better sense of fixing myself.”</p>
<p>The nose and eyebrows of the teenager being tended to wrinkled at the bitter flavor of someone polite as her acquaintance cruelly chastised. “I’m sorry that happened to you.” However, something else tugged the back of her mind and eventually her tongue into forming the words. “What ideals did you have?” And she instantly regretted her question. She couldn’t just press a person to discuss a sensitive subject! She barely formed an apology before Armin gladly provided her an explanation, seeming to have taken no offense. It wasn't at all a problem. Besides, Armin had a knack for getting a good read on a person’s character. Something told him he could trust this girl.</p>
<p>“I want to know what’s beyond the walls. In fact... My grandpa owned a book containing everything to know about the outside world. To no ends, I would rave about a water body covering most of the world—the sea—mountains of salt held inside it, fiery lakes, snowfields of sand, landscapes of ice...” Armin trailed off, losing himself in his vivid imagination of what truly lied out there for humanity, of what they were being deprived of. As Mina lent an ear to her peer, she found herself suppressing skepticism, and she disfavored herself for it, but of course doubt lived in her! As apart of the populace who sought protection from the walls, she wasn’t so eager in vacating the structures providing safeguard to the remainder of humanity. What’s more, whether what the boy spoke of existed in the first place. It all sounded plain imaginary. Nevertheless, the lively flames waltzing Armin’s eyes and awe daubing his infatuated words were exactly enough into convincing her otherwise. Her parted lips curved marginally, at least until the flames dwindled to nothing more than fatigued embers, agony instead seeping in his now somber eyes. “I’m sure the book didn’t survive Maria’s fall.” Armin inhaled a shuttering breath. “Now, all I have left of my family is memories and a keepsake.”</p>
<p>The silent girl clenched her fists, battling the urge to comfort Armin as a victim of those who previously resided in the Shingashina District. “Mina Carolina,” she instead settled with. Armin’s eyes softened and he stitched the last wound close.</p>
<p>“Armin Arlert.”</p>
<p>“I-I don’t have a big family.” <em>It’s my turn to pour my heart out,</em> thought Mina. ”All I’ve ever know was my mom and I before she died during childbirth, leaving me t-to care for my baby sister. I named her Bella and she’s five years old. You wouldn’t believe how beautiful she is, Armin!” Tears welled Mina’s eyes and disappeared with few motions of Armin’s finger. “I’m it; I’m the family left. She’s all I have, that’s why when I heard about the disaster, I decided then and there I’d join the Cadets. It was only a matter of time for Wall Maria to succumb to Titans—who’s to say Wall Rose and Sina aren’t exceptions? It won’t be her death upon countless others should that come to pass. Not if I can help it.” Armin’s heart surely fractured. Mina had been through worse than him, far worse. Losing her family until only a newborn sister remained? He couldn’t imagine the heartache she suffered. <em>“Gah!</em>” Armin jumps at the awful sound of Mina landing blows on her cheeks that we’re sure to leave throbbing welts. “Then comes the first day of training and I’m afraid of my own shadow! That’s why you saw me hurting myself! I was tempted in returning to Bella, but I couldn’t, because I’m doing this <em>for</em> her, and I would never forgive myself if I ran back home with my tail between my legs! Goddamn it, I’m so terrible!”</p>
<p><em>“Hey,”</em> Armin took hold of Mina’s shoulders, looking deeper into her eyes than he intended to, “Don’t ever insult yourself like that again. What I heard is that you had nothing holding you back from running away, and did you? No! I know better than anyone what that feels like, and Bella is luckier than you think to have you as her sister.”</p>
<p>Mina’s vision grew distorted and tears—which Armin misinterpreted as grief—plunged down her face. Well, he partially interpreted correctly. She released tears of both grief and joy. <em>“This baby is lucky to have you as their sister,</em> were my mom’s last words to me. If I’m being honest, I see a lot of her in you. Mother-like touch, gentle smile, caring eyes and all. Her flower must be joyous and dancing in the wind with the others.”</p>
<p>“Flower?” Armin repeated the word for clarification.</p>
<p>“When I was little, after asking my mom what happens to humans after we die, she told me a violet flowers would bloom someplace for those who passed away. I thought it a lie for my protection until seeing dozens of them in the grassland days after Shinganshina.”</p>
<p>Armin shifted gaze towards the side, returning to the hell forced upon mankind from that day on. Or, previously unbeknownst to them, the hell they always lived in. Pages of his book soaring through his mind, Armin reminded himself of possibility, and more importantly <em>hope.</em> If they beat the Titans, Armin could capture all the exhilarating wonders the outside world begged him to discover and obtain Mankind’s deserved freedom. Like a river’s water, encouragement rushed through Armin.</p>
<p>“We can do this. Three years from now, we can fight back, bring everybody peace, and ensure no more flowers to bloom.” Armin extended his hand for Mina to envelop, and her grasp grew tighter with each eager nod. Mina Carolina and Armin Arlert thereupon forged a close bond, in which they strengthened their relationship by the day during those ensuing 36 months. That’s right. Armin and Mina were going to change the world with their fellow allies, with the 104th Cadet Corps.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>-ˋˏ <em>Bellflower</em> ˎˊ-</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Brought to his knees on the roof of a building, Armin gawked helplessly as his friends were slaughtered by the Titans invading Wall Rose. The familiar, sickening odor of flesh once again fulfilled Armin’s nostrils and reflexed the dreary soldier into vomiting his morning fare, tears blending with the foul matter. A shrill pitch finding way in Armin’s eardrums substituted for the catastrophe traversing Trost’s District, and he fell deaf to the world. Raw eyes flickered the reality unfolding before him. Rapid breaths weakened. Hysterical heart battered his ears. This was it. Nothing more, nothing less...</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Annihilation by bloodthirsty humanoids was humanity’s fate. How could he ever have believed otherwise?</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Blood curdled in Armin’s veins, sensing Mina’s wails without his futile ears, and his view drifted to her struggling in the inescapable hold of a Titan. <em>Mina Carolina writhed and writhed and writhed and writhed and—</em><strong><em>chomp.</em></strong> Her corpse convulsed for seconds, then went still. Tears slathered her petrified expression and the decapitated head was taken by tongue into the creature’s mouth to be mercilessly mangled between jaws. Crimson liquid belonging to one of many Armin's dearest friends blended with their comrades’ sullying the battlefield. As if Armin Arlert’s flesh was deemed unworthy by a higher power, everything was claimed from him excluding what he wanted claimed most of all.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>For a fleeting second, the heavy scent of flowers engulfed Armin... Just as the Titan dangling him above its mouth was to do.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>What a cruel world he lived in.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>besides her name, we know next to nothing about Mina's character, and as expected my imagination ran wild. i hope you liked it! please tell me if there's anything i can improve on my writing, i would really appreciate it. thank you for reading! ♡</p></blockquote></div></div>
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